Custom / 3,000 Square Feet or Less / Merit

Before they began designing this Paso Robles, Calif., house, architects Joshua Aidlin, AIA, and Peter Larsen camped out on the 78-acre site to gain a sense of its daily rhythms and idiosyncrasies. This experience influenced the home’s eventual location, on a low-lying, tree-shaded patch of land. And it helped Aidlin, Larsen, and David Darling, AIA, figure out how create a building that cools itself naturally, even in 115-degree temperatures. Their use of passive solar principles—thermal mass, night cooling, orientation, shading, and ventilation—allowed them to bypass air conditioning, thus helping to meet the clients’ goal of living in harmony with the local climate.

“It’s a well-composed testimony that modern architecture still has drawing power,” said a judge. “It’s not trying too hard.”